Before television came calling, Miranda did what so many comedians did before her – she packed her bag full of gags and headed up to Edinburgh, the place where you can make it, where you can get taken seriously, if people notice you at all. But as a female comedian? The Edinburgh Festival is still very much a man’s world. But it wouldn’t be nothing without a woman, eh?
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FRINGE BENEFITS
‘I’ll get drunk. I’ll get laid. I’ll get spotted. I’ll get paid.’
– Arthur Smith on the four main ambitions of performing at the Edinburgh Fringe
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival, or the Fringe, or Ed. Whatever you call it, it’s the world’s largest arts festival and undoubtedly the highlight of the live comedy calendar. Every August, the entire London comedy circuit heads up to the Scottish capital to be discovered by the comedy producers and promoters… of London. It’s a funny old system, but it’s one that was established in 1946 and, well, if it ain’t broke… Of course, this isn’t entirely true. Performers don’t come just from London to take part, but from all over the world, whether they’re seeking fame or recognition, or simply just to have a go. In 2010, there were an overwhelming 2,453 shows to choose from in the Fringe programme alone, not to mention numerous related festival events: the Edinburgh International Festival, Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival, Edinburgh Book Festival, Edinburgh Internet Festival, Edinburgh Swing Festival, Edinburgh International Television Festival… There were so many offshoot events that the Edinburgh International Film Festival was shifted from August to late June in 2008.
For punters, it’s a fantastic experience – there are shows to cater to every taste and there’s nothing quite like sauntering into a pub and discovering something new and exciting. For residents, well, they’re split: some love that their city becomes the centre of culture; some see it as an invasion. For the comedians, however, it’s all part of the job – where your job involves nocturnal hours, drinking far too much, and leaving financially far worse off than you arrived. But it’s the spirit of the Fringe and most embrace it.
For years, many acts performing at the Festival were battling for the Perrier Comedy Award. The inaugural winners were The Cambridge Footlights in 1981, whose Cellar Tapes show was directed by future Dead Ringers star Jan Ravens and was performed by Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, Tony Slattery, Penny Dwyer and Paul Shearer. Other big names who would win the award included Jeremy Hardy, Frank Skinner, Steve Coogan, Lee Evans, Jenny Eclair, Dylan Moran, The League of Gentlemen, Al Murray, Rich Hall, Daniel Kitson and Brendon Burns. When Perrier withdrew their sponsorship in 2006, it moved through various deals, rebranding as the if.comedy awards (the if.comeddies), but now seems to have settled on the less fussy Edinburgh Comedy Awards.
Winning or receiving a nomination for the main award is a big deal for comedians and can come as quite a shock. Russell Kane, the 2010 winner of the main award, can remember where he was when he received his nomination by voicemail. ‘I was in a disabled toilet changing into a costume for a play and as I played the message I fell sideways and pulled the distress cord.’
Some feel that the very idea of an award is anti-Fringe. Richard Herring, who at the time of writing has written and performed in 30 Edinburgh shows since 1987, was once asked by a BBC interviewer what his one Edinburgh wish would be. He replied, ‘If I could only have one, I would wish that the Perrier Award would be banished from the Festival in perpetuity. I think it creates an unpleasant atmosphere of competition in something that shouldn’t be a competition and gives lazy TV execs and punters a shortcut way to see what are supposedly the best six acts without having to do the leg work themselves and discover that there are at least forty other shows that are equally deserving of their attention.’
We were taught as children that it’s not about winning – it’s the taking part that counts. Though, in 2008, the awards were accused of wimping out by giving the Spirit of the Fringe to ‘Every comedian on the Fringe for making it happen’. After that year’s ceremony, performer bars were full of talk, comedians threatening to put ‘Spirit of the Fringe winner 2008’ on next year’s posters. I failed to spot any in 2009, but it’s this sort of camaraderie and ethos that embodies the Fringe for so many performers and tempts them back year after year.
When asked about memorable Fringe moments, comedians paint a picture of a mischievous, debauched and frankly bizarre August. Jason Byrne said his favourite moment was when an audience member left his show to go to the toilet and he convinced the rest of the crowd to hide: ‘I got 169 people to leave the venue via the exit door by the stage, and we all hid there while we watched the woman come back from the toilet. She came back and sat down, and we all jumped out and shouted, “Surprise!” The girl nearly died, it was great fun.’
Rhod Gilbert paints a romantic picture, fondly remembering spending the last night of the festival with good friends: ‘Watching dawn break on the city that had been our home for a month, my flatmates and I quietly contemplated what had passed, while Steve Hall from We Are Klang played the recorder with his anus. It was as fitting a soundtrack as one could hope for.’
It’s not just the comedians providing the bum notes (sorry), they also stumble across it themselves. Richard Herring recalled a very special and curious Edinburgh sight: ‘I was once walking back to the Pleasance from the old Gilded Balloon quite late at night when I saw a couple having sex, quite openly, on a small stretch of grass by the road. They then both waved at me as I passed. And I waved back.’
For Miranda Hart, the Edinburgh Fringe represented a chance to put her depression and agoraphobia behind her, and to dip her toe into the world of comedy. It would be an inauspicious beginning: ‘I first went to the Edinburgh Festival in 1994 with a terrible show called Hurrell and Hart and said to myself, “If I get an OK review and one night with more than 20 people in the audience then I am going to try to do this for a living.”’ Although, as she confessed years later to Fern Britton, they had to cancel most nights because no one turned up, one evening they performed to 21 people. In addition, what Hart describes now as a ‘very OK three-star review in The Scotsman’ made her determined to continue.
It would, however, be six years before she returned to the Festival, this time in 2000 with Charity Trimm in the double-act the Orange Girls. The reviews were varied, from the dismissive (‘The Orange Girls really are taking the pith. And that’s the quality of much of their material’) to the more considered (‘The duo’s show includes some nice sketches… as well as the aforementioned byplay, and the girls work equally well together in either mode’). Making good use of their disparate heights led to one review comparing them unfavourably with Little and Large, but another critic was more encouraging: ‘It’s a good start for a comedy double-act, and the Orange Girls make much of it; a couple of times Hart literally tucks Trimm under her arm and carries her across the stage.’
Despite a modest press reaction and humble audience numbers, they must have made some waves. Later in 2000, they contributed sketch material to the schools science series Scientific Eye, made by Yorkshire Television for Channel 4. In the programme, they demonstrate thermometers and how to make ice cream. You can still dig it up on YouTube.
Hart and Trimm worked together at Edinburgh again in 2001, but this time, instead of putting on a sketch show, they took part in The Sitcom Trials, a show devised and hosted by the Scottish comedian Kev F. Sutherland. Anyone can apply, and the shortlisted scripts are performed in front of a live audience who vote for which they like best. They then only see the ending of the chosen sitcom. The show had started out at The Comedy Box in Bristol in 1999, before playing at three Edinburgh Festivals, and leading to a series on ITV1 in 2003, and tours including Hollywood in 2005. It has now settled in its new home at the Leicester Square Theatre in London.
It was at Edinburgh 2001 that Miranda’s eponymously titled sitcom began life. The Sitcom Trials site sums it up: ‘It features Miranda, working in a joke shop that sells pen
is pasta, with a diminutive blonde sidekick, originally played by Charity Trimm, and the love interest in the cafe, played here by Gerard Foster.’ The way in which Hart and Trimm fight over Sebastian (a character very similar to Gary) is much like the way Miranda and Stevie (Sarah Hadland) bicker and compete in the BBC sitcom. Even the character of Clive was present, played by Daniel Clegg. Ironically, James Holmes, who took on the role for television, performed in The Sitcom Trials the very next year. In February 2002, the show was restaged at the Leicester Comedy Festival, after which Miranda concluded she would have to go it alone for her next show.
The Edinburgh Fringe Programme for 2002 described her solo show, Miranda Hart… throb, as ‘Character comedy from an up-and-coming comedy actress, formerly half of The Orange Girls double act. Miranda Hart-Throbs is in understudy rehearsals for a show – she is a wannabe, desperate for fame, but will she make it?’
In the show, she interacted with the crew as well as the audience themselves. Margaret Cabourn-Smith played the director and the technicians were Daniel Clegg and Anne-Marie Draycott. Hart borrowed £7,000 from a friend to put the show on and, unlike with Hurrell and Hart, she got a good audience, but still ended up losing money. Such is Edinburgh. But talk was beginning to spread and reviewers were taking notice. Ian Shuttleworth wrote for the FT: ‘We should see more of Ms Hart, although at 6’1” there’s quite a lot of her already. This hour showcases well her brand of silliness.’ Shuttleworth went on to describe one of the key things that people find appealing about Miranda: ‘I usually have trouble with comedy of embarrassment, because I keep sympathising with the embarrassed party. One of Hart’s strengths is that she can put herself in awkward situations without generating that kind of uneasiness.’ Arguably, she still adopts this key skill in her current work, having spent several years developing her likeable alter ego.
However, the show wasn’t perfect, and other critics picked out where they saw room for improvement. Comedy website Chortle gave it a three-star review and, while content with her performance, expressed concern for the sections when she is on stage alone: ‘These stand-up sections are easily the weakest – sub-standard observations, a bar-room gag about an inflatable school and a recurring joke about the household hints found in women’s magazines that are surely beyond parody, thanks to Viz.’ While warmer towards the sketches, the same reviewer suggested that they might have been improved by being shortened, and that Hart’s finest moments occurred when she interacted with the other characters, ‘an insecure, sexually confused director, a safety-obsessed techie and the nervous work experience girl – producing some fertile comic friction. These running gags help make the whole a great deal more than the parts, thanks also to some neat callbacks and some likeable unscripted banter.’
All in all, the reviews concluded that, while Hart was an endearing performer, and was certainly getting noticed, there was room for improvement in Miranda Hart… throb. And at Edinburgh, there’s always next year. So Hart returned in 2003 with It’s All About Me: ‘Unique character comedy from a delightful, talented and funny performer. Come and see why this comedy actress is raved about. A mix of unique character comedy, stand-up and there are attempts to sing and dance’. Prior to the Edinburgh run, the show played at the Finborough Theatre in London and, for the first time, the press releases could use references to last year’s sell-out run. In It’s All About Me, Hart played an aspiring but talentless actress trying out a show that she hopes will be discovered by Sean Connery and taken to Broadway. Audiences were treated to the physical prowess that would later attract millions to the BBC – her dance was of course clunky and clumsy and she decided to combine speech and mime (and call it “smime”) as her movements weren’t speaking for themselves. Miranda was brave enough to shave off the extra cast members, but retained just one technician, played by Anne-Marie Draycott. Draycott, ironically, later joined up with Charity Trimm to form the sketch group 3 Girls in a Boat. They were originally a trio but, as they put it, ‘the third girl jumped ship’.
Once It’s All About Me reached Edinburgh, Chortle gave Miranda another middling three stars, claiming there wasn’t enough originality. ‘The character of the theatrical, show-off madam convinced she’s onto a fast track to adulation despite negligible skill seems to be to the aspiring comedienne what Star Wars and masturbation is to the stereotypical male standup.’ There was little criticism of Miranda’s performance, however: ‘Hart pulls it off with aplomb, though. The semi-autobiographical character is utterly believable and the enthusiasm rubs off as she encourages us all to celebrate her poshness.’ This is another quality that matured and is still a prominent theme in the Miranda sitcom.
Word started to spread about Hart during the 2003 Fringe. There was even talk of her as a potential contender for the comedy awards. Writing for the FT, Ian Shuttleworth listed her among Sarah Kendall, Lucy Porter and Nina Conti as one of the funniest females on the Fringe: ‘Miranda Hart is now delightfully accomplished at self-parodic character work: imagine Dawn French at her best, but shaped like a classical caryatid.’
There was even talk of her as a potential contender for the Fringe’s comedy awards, though she would be unsuccessful on that front. That year, Demetri Martin got the main gong, while Gary Le Strange (Waen Shepherd’s eccentric Rock character) got best newcomer. But to be considered at all shows that she was stepping up to the challenge. Commercial success couldn’t be too far away.
Miranda took a year off solo shows to work on her act, hone her stand-up and refine the character. Back in London, she performed a run of It’s All About Me at the Soho Theatre in October 2003 and started hosting a regular comedy night for female performers called ‘Lipstick and Shopping’, at the Albany on Great Portland Street. Each night would accommodate one male performer. Stewart Lee was to become a near-regular – in January 2004, his newsletter read: ‘These nights are ace and full of all-female talent, except for the token man, which I am now for the third time running.’
Miranda’s 2004 Edinburgh found her in two daily productions: Dogman, a children’s play based on the book by John Dowie, and Finger Food, written by and starring Helen Lederer. With one beginning at 2.15pm, the other at 7.45pm, the lifestyle of going to bed at 6am and sleeping into the early evening (standard for many Edinburgh comics) was not an option for her. She told the BBC what she planned to do with her time not spent performing: ‘When I’m not working I will be seeing as many shows as possible. Plus for Helen’s show I’m turning into a bit of a chef as I have to prep some nibbles and other food stuffs for her show where we cook on stage.’
Finger Food was a spoof cookery show, where Helen Lederer’s wannabe presenter character gets her chance to fill in as the regular host is stuck in Paris. Miranda played the floor manager who is more concerned with her relationship woes than the situation in hand. The Fringe programme description sums it up as ‘Three women in search of a nervous breakdown meets Noises Off!’
The reviews varied wildly from a one-star thrashing from Chortle, to a glowing review on EdinburghGuide.com: ‘[Their] verbal interplay is worth many chuckles on its own, and the script is rich with gags, too – and, to cap it, there’s an admirable turn at the end of the show towards slapstick and the surreal.’
Dogman, meanwhile, was adapted for the stage by Leisa Rea, whose production is described in the programme as ‘off beat, with daft physical comedy, a ukelele, toy piano, swanee whistle, accordion, clarinet, melodica and guitar’. Miranda was joined by Janice Phayre, Margaret Cabourn-Smith, Richard Vranch and Tom Price. One happy audience member logged on to Chortle to leave the comment: ‘I took my five-year-old daughter to see dogman last week at the Gilded Balloon, we both enjoyed it. It is a fantastic show and I would recommend it to anybody.’
An audiobook CD was later released in 2005, narrated by Phill Jupitus and with songs from Neil Innes.
After that busy Edinburgh, Miranda took the ‘Lipstick and Shopping’ showcase to Stratford-upon-Avon in October 2004, as part of the Roy
al Shakespeare Company’s second ‘Week With Laughter’ festival. Also appearing were Paul Merton’s improv group The Comedy Store Players, as well as Jimmy Carr, Mark Thomas, Pam Ann and Al Murray. Throughout the year, she perfected her stage skills and really got to know her character.
Looking at the programme synopsis for her 2005 Edinburgh show, Miranda Hart’s House Party, we see a pretty precise description of a Miranda who will, in not too much time, be on our screens: ‘Miranda doesn’t fit in! She was born into an upper-class background she can’t relate to; she is 6’1” and finds it hard to feel feminine and fit in with the “girls”; she is single but has no flirting skills; and has always been a liability at social functions.’ The show sees her holding a party to help her meet new friends, complete with a timetable of how the evening will run. She’s desperate to please and cater for every taste, as she has Tennent’s Lager, After Eights, Quality Street and a bowl of Es. The audience play a game of pass the parcel while Miranda tells them about her middle-class friends.
Also in the cast for House Party was Neil Edmond, who played Miranda’s cousin. Edmond was a member of sketch group The Consultants with Justin Edwards and James Rawlings, and they had won the Perrier Award for Best Newcomer in 2002. More recently, he has appeared in such series as BBC7’s Knocker, and in TV shows such as Jack Dee’s Lead Balloon and indeed Miranda itself. In the Edinburgh run of House Party, as her cousin, Edmond fills in for Miranda while she changes into costume for the various party guests she plays. They include Poo, her ‘jolly hockey sticks’ horsey friend; the guy she had a crush on at university; and the girlfriend who tells gushing tales about her fiancé, undercut by her denial of sadness at his not marrying her.
Miranda Hart Page 5